


Hearts are Foolish Things

by Maleficar



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23729401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maleficar/pseuds/Maleficar
Summary: Rain drives Aerith and Cloud into a chilly shelter on the road home from the church.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife
Comments: 15
Kudos: 230





	Hearts are Foolish Things

She’d felt the resonance. First, on the plate in Sector 8. Then, when he crashed through the roof and landed in the midst of her flowers.

Aerith knew better. She knew better than to want men whose eyes were the color of the sky, and she knew she only wanted this one because of the faint harmonies within him. He was bound up with Zack. She could close her eyes and—

She knew _better_.

But hearts were foolish things.

She followed Cloud Strife across the rooftops, peppering him with questions and dodging his own.

“Maybe,” she said with a laugh, “he thought I could be the greatest SOLDIER yet.”

Cloud let out a sigh of exasperation. “Forget it.”

Such a prickly creature. She half expected him to casually shove her off the rooftops just to be rid of her. But, no, he warned her as they came up to the thin pipe.

Was he as brave as he acted?

She wasn’t. As she pressed herself against the side of shanty home, her heart pounded in her chest. The ground was a long way away. If a SOLDIER fell, he might be fine, but her? It would hurt like a bitch.

“I… actually… haven’t traveled by rooftop before,” she said slowly as they ducked through a low overhang. Shredded awnings hung from the ceiling, creeping like spiderwebs against her naked arms.

Aerith shuddered.

“Be surprised if you had.”

She rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to erase the tickling feeling from her skin, and turned her eyes upward to a dusty, rickety ceiling. Was he capable of more than five words at a time? He was lucky he was so handsome.

But his sour attitude didn’t bring her down.

She watched him slide down a ladder, grinning over the edge of it. “It’s honestly kind of exciting.” She swung her legs around and slid down after he’d cleared it, her skirt floofing up.

He jerked away, scowling into the distance.

Red stained his cheeks, and Aerith’s grin turned mischievous and pleased.

“Well. First time and all.” He scratched at his chin, refusing to meet her eyes.

Aerith leaned toward him, her hands laced behind her back. “First times are _very_ exciting. Aren’t they?” she asked, letting some of that desire seep into her voice.

His flush deepened. Blue-green eyes met hers and then darted away. He cleared his throat. Rocked back on his heels. “We should keep going.” Stepping around her, he resumed a much brisker pace than before.

Aerith trotted after him, pleased with herself. Little was as fun as making stoic men like him blush.

Quickly, though, he outpaced her. He leaped over the rooftops with ease, leaving her on the far side of a large jump.

Heart pounding so loud she felt her pulse in her ears, she peered over the edge.

With a strangled little sound, she jerked back. It was a _long_ way down, even with all the progress they’d made.

When she glanced up, he was halfway around the corner of the next building. “Wait!” she called, clutching her hands to her chest. He wouldn’t abandon her. She knew that. For all his bluster and too-cool attitude, he wasn’t cruel. “Give me a moment, would you?”

He paused, looking over his shoulder at her. They stood too far apart for her to read his expression, but he turned back. He came back.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand to her.

Swallowing down her nerves, she took a step back and then flung herself forward.

The tip of her boot caught on the corrugated iron rooftop, and she pitched wildly forward, crying out with alarm. Her heart jumped into her throat, her stomach twisting into a sudden, vicious knot.

And then his hands, wrapped in warm leather, closed around her wrists. With inhuman strength, he pulled her against him, and Aerith collapsed into his arms. Safe. Warm. So warm. He smelled like sweat and dirt and the crackle of ozone, and she wanted to press her face against his neck and just breathe him in for hours.

One hand rested lightly on his chest. The other smoothed over his shoulder. “Thanks,” she said softly, smiling up at him.

He stared down at her, still faintly red.

“Maybe next time, you don’t run off on your own?”

He chuckled, the corners of his mouth quirking up. “Those the words of a SOLDIER candidate?”

Oh, he had an adorable grin. And he teased her. He rose to her bait and gave as good as he got.

“So petty,” she huffed, but she kept smiling, too. Her arms twined around the back of his neck, and she leaned closer. Her lips brushed his ear, and his body tensed against hers. “Lucky for you, I like that.”

She drew back, sliding her body along his before pulling away, and left him standing behind her with a poleaxed expression. She also liked _that_ , but he didn’t need to know that.

The sky grew darker, the plate’s shadow deeper.

Aerith paused on a rooftop, holding onto a half-rotted wooden pillar behind her. Tipping her head back, she peered at the sky above them. “Looks like rain.” As if to confirm her suspicions, thunder rolled on the plate’s horizon.

She glanced at Cloud. “We might want to find a place to wait out the storm.”

He frowned. “Won’t the plate—”

“Nope,” she said with good cheer.

People new to the ground often thought they were safe from storms. Not true. The slums covered by plates got the worst of it. Dirty rain water slipped between the gaps in a plate’s structure. The runoff dropped groundside long after the rain stopped plate side, dragging sludge and refuse from the plate above to the slums below.

“The plate makes storms gross. The stormwater is downright vile. We should find a place with a decent roof.”

Cloud crossed his arms, turning his frown on the nearby buildings. “So… no one lives in these buildings?” he asked hesitantly.

Aerith wondered why. Was he concerned about breaking into someone’s house or that he’d have a cute girl curling up against him when the water fell from the plate and turned everything chilly?

“Nope,” she said, sliding up to his side. He leaned back, but only a little. Only enough to meet her eyes. “No one to get mad if we make noise.”

His eyes widened.

Aerith pressed one finger to the middle of his chest. Pushed just enough to throw a normal person off balance. He, of course, didn’t move. “What’s that face for?” she asked with a laugh.

Turning, she ducked around the corner of a ramshackle building. The walls had buckled around the windows, so she passed that one by.

Behind her, she heard Cloud’s footsteps on the flimsy wood boards. “We might be able to get to the station before the rain… drips down from the plate?” He made the last bit of his statement into more of a question.

Aerith peered around his shoulder, squinting at the horizon beyond the steel sky. Heavy, dark clouds obscured the sun, painting the sky angry purples and blues. “No,” she said. “This storm is moving too quickly. And it’ll get too dark to see where we’re walking.”

She felt it in the distance. Rain pelted the cracked, dry earth outside of Midgar, those dead plains that wheezed and gasped for life.

Another peal of thunder rolled through the sky, louder this time. Lightning struck in the distance, fracturing like white veins against the clouds.

“This way.” She caught him by the wrist and tugged him after her, leading him deeper into the tangle of dilapidated homes.

The heavy clouds obscuring the setting sun cast the slums into darkness. Shadows deepened as Aerith and Cloud scoured homes in search of a roof that hadn’t split or fallen away. Eventually, he unsocketed one of his yellow materia, holding it up for light so they could see.

They’d just found an abandoned house with a serviceable roof when the first thick, black blob of runoff fell from the plate above them. Cloud stared at the dirty splotch on the pipe beneath their feet, his brows arched with surprise.

Another droplet plopped onto the pipe beside his boot, and Aerith grabbed his wrist with both hands. “You really don’t want that to fall on you,” she said, pulling him into the house.

He stumbled inside, catching himself on a large crate before he could topple over, and she gave him a flash of an apologetic smile.

Setting his sword and the yellow materia on the top of the box, he turned to the pockets in his pants. “Here,” he said, and he removed a handful more materia.

Purple, green, and yellow light filled the tiny house. A small fortune in materia cast strange shadows across the wood and corrugated iron.

Above them, fat runoff pinged against the roof, plinking out a staccato rhythm.

He frowned at the ceiling, sitting near the box.

Aerith laid her own staff on the box, unsocketing her materia, too. They’d want all the light they could get, no matter how strange the riot of color was.

“It gets really loud,” she said, lifting her voice so she could be heard over the sound of the runoff. She smoothed her skirt down her legs and sat opposite him, studying him.

Cloud winced, nodding.

She gave him a sympathetic smile. SOLDIERs had excellent senses. No doubt he found the sound irritating. She did, too, and she couldn’t hear someone drop a pin through three floors of concrete.

They sat for a moment in relative silence, listening to the rain pinging against the roof. As it began to pour down from the plate above in sheets, the air grew noticeably cooler. Aerith suppressed a shiver, wrapping her arms around her middle.

Cloud didn’t seem to notice the cold. His eyes kept skipping over her, studying the cast of the shadows over the room.

She took the opportunity to study his face. The green materia made his eyes brighter. The purple, almost magenta materia warmed his skin. And the yellow? It made his hair glow in the faint light.

Handsome. He was handsome, just like Zack. And when she stilled her mind and focused on her breathing, when she touched that warm, green place inside her heart, he _felt_ like Zack, too. He felt like warmth and solace. He felt like safety and familiarity.

“It’s a bit cold, isn’t it?” she asked, rubbing her arms.

He made a soft sound of agreement, ducking his head to study the dusty floor.

Aerith scooted closer.

Zack was gone. She’d felt him go. There was no point in hanging onto him, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of him. Cloud _wasn’t_ Zack.

But hearts were foolish things. For just a moment, she wanted to feel close to him again.

Aerith laid her hand against Cloud’s upper arm.

He jumped, jerking his gaze to hers.

With a soft smile, she lifted her hand to his cheek. Her fingers feathered over his cheek. “You feel chilly.” Her thumb brushed his bottom lip. His mouth was perennially downturned, whether in a pout or a scowl she couldn’t say. But as her thumb traced the soft line of it, his lips parted, and the faintest bit of desire curled them.

She watched his eyes, feeling like she was falling off the edge of a plate and into the sky.

“It’s not that bad,” he said, but he didn’t look away.

“Maybe not to a SOLDIER,” she replied, rising to her knees at his side. Her other hand curved against his cheek. She cradled his face, and the chill in the air faded for the heat expanding like a slow-rolling thunderstorm inside her. “Help me ward of the chill, Mr. Bodyguard.”

His eyes widened for only a moment before a look of soft, simmering interest replaced surprise. “That costs extra.” His tone was playful. Kind. Inviting.

“How much?” Her fingers applied a gentle pressure, urging his head to tip backwards.

“We can negotiate a rate.” Hesitant hands settled on her hips. Slid higher.

Aerith inhaled deeply, her eyes fluttering shut as his hands ran over her waist, beneath her jacket, and up her sides. “After?”

“After,” he agreed, and she bent her head to kiss him softly.

She felt more of his hesitation, but not unwillingness, no, for his lips parted beneath hers with a gusty sigh. He tasted shy and uncertain, his lips moving always a second later than hers, but she found she didn’t mind.

He gave her the space to lick into his mouth and discover heat beneath the uncertainty, and when she teased his tongue with hers, he rewarded her with an aching little moan.

Her hands slipped from his face. One slid behind his neck, her arm curving around him as she settled against his chest. His arm wound around her, too, banding about her waist to tug her closer. Her free hand ran down his neck and along his shoulder. She traced her fingertips over his bicep, drawing idle lines against his skin.

At his wrist, her fingers curved into the edge of his gauntlet. A gentle tug pulled the armor down his wrist and over the back of his hand. He pulled in the opposite direction, and the glove fell away.

His callused fingers brushed against her elbow as she turned her face, catching his mouth from a new, better angle. Like this, her hair fell over her shoulder and cut off the light from the materia. Heavy shadow obscured his face when she opened her eyes, but not so much that she could confuse him for someone else.

She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to climb into bed with a ghost; she wanted a living, breathing man with hot skin and hotter moans.

“Hey,” she whispered when his eyes met hers.

“Hey,” he whispered back, his hands easing up her body. One bare, one still in his glove, his hands paused just beneath her breasts.

A shiver ran down Aerith’s spine, but not from cold. Desire warmed her and deafened her to the pounding rain. All she heard was the beat of her heart and the whispering exhalations of Cloud’s every breath.

She kissed him again, hungrier this time. Their mouths fit together, and she sank against him, sank into the heat of his body and the warmth of his kiss.

His hands slid up, slid over her breasts, slid to her shoulders where he pushed at her jacket. She arched her back, drawing her hands from him. The heavy denim jacket dropped to the ground behind her, and she left it there, forgotten.

Surging forward, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her skirt climbed high on her thighs as she slipped into his lap, her legs bracketing his.

She settled against him as her fingers drove into his hair. An easy pressure with her fingers cajoled his head to turn, to tip to the side so she could slide her tongue into his mouth and devour her.

His arms came around her. She felt the brush of them against her sides as he yanked off his other glove. Then his hands were on her again, curving over her ass as he drew her hard against him.

The strength of his grasp made her moan.

“Sorry,” he gasped into their kiss.

“No.” She nipped at his lower lip. “No, it felt good. Feels good. You feel good, Cloud.”

Her hips pressed against his, desperately seeking friction and contact. Between her legs, she felt the line of his cock against her thigh. A shuddering heat rippled through her, and she rolled her body against his for the exquisite pleasure of feeling his desire.

She made quick work of his pauldron, unsnapping it from his suspenders.

It clanked to the ground. He shoved it further aside and then returned his hands to her. One hand pressed against the small of her back, urging her to move against him again. His other hand pressed between them and brushed against her belly. His fingers danced against her, making her gasp and then laugh. He tugged loose the tie around her stomach, and then his fingers lifted to the buttons.

He paused, drawing back. “This okay?”

Aerith brushed her nose alongside his. “Remember when I said there isn’t anyone in these houses?”

He watched her with wide eyes. When he spoke, he was breathless. “Yeah. I do.”

“Remember how I said no one will get mad if we make noise?”

He nodded, his fingers fiddling with the button between her breasts. Each little motion rubbed his knuckles against her skin, and the teasing promise of touch through fabric made her ache.

“Make me scream for you, Cloud.”

The button popped off. He jerked her hard against him, fitting her hips to his. Their mouths crashed together, their kisses hard and fast and good, yes, so good. She moaned against his mouth as her fingers raked down his chest and yanked at his shirt.

He shimmied, letting his suspenders fall over his shoulders, and then grabbed the back of his shirt. He pulled it over his head in a fluid motion, setting it beside them, and then he wrapped his arms around her and rolled her to her back beneath him.

She gasped, laying panting on his shirt as he dropped his mouth to her chest. Hungry, sucking kisses danced down her chest. His tongue traced the edge of her dress.

“Yes,” she breathed, arching her back for him.

She caught the heel of one boot with the toe of the other, kicking first one and then the other off her feet and out of their way.

In the mad rush to lose their clothes, she yanked open his pants, and he rucked her skirt up to her hips. He left her dress buttoned, sitting back on his heels to take in the sight of her.

The weight of his gaze made her burn. He devoured her with hungry eyes, sweeping his hands up the inside of her legs.

He bent, brushing his nose against her cunt through her panties, and Aerith gasped.

“Kiss me.” Her fingers combed through his hair, her legs falling wide to accommodate the delicious breadth of his shoulders.

She urged him closer, and his lips pressed against her.

A broken moan fell from her lips.

He tugged her panties to the side, revealing her cunt. The heat of his breath washed over her like a warm wave, leaving her delirious for more. She didn’t tug him closer, though; she let him take his time. Let him study her.

“Do you like what you see?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he breathed, and she shivered beneath him. “Like when you move like that.” He shifted closer, and his lips brushed against her slick flesh.

She moaned his name for him as fire swirled through her—and then she cried out for him as he ran his tongue up the length of her.

If he’d never done this before, it didn’t show. He tasted her with long, deliberate strokes that had her aching. And when she sank too easily into those motions, her hips rolling with each drag of his tongue, he slid two fingers inside her and ran the tip of his tongue around her clit.

No, he’d definitely done this before.

She was so grateful to whomever had come before her as Cloud’s fingers curled inside her. He started an even pace, testing to find out what she liked, and then moved faster to keep time with the rolling of her hips and the aching cries that spilled out of her.

Her fingers clenched and tugged in his hair. She arched her hips against his mouth and keened for him. Decadent tension built between her legs, a slowly increasing burn that spread through her entire body. She could float in this forever, she thought, opening her eyes to stare blankly at the wash of rainbow color no the ceiling. She could lay on the dusty floor and let Cloud fuck her with his tongue until she expired from the lingering pleasure of it.

But he didn’t give her eternity. He pressed her, he pushed her. His tongue flicked against her clit as his fingers worked inside her, and he cajoled her deeper into the consuming flames of pleasure.

She came with sobbing cry, her back arching off the floor. Her toes curled, her legs wrapping almost violently around his sides as she clutched him against her and her cunt clenched around him.

Her breath stuttered and shuddered along with her body. Sweet ecstasy prickled her skin and clouded her vision.

“Kiss me,” she begged him, her hands pressing against his shoulders to urge him up.

Cloud slipped up her body. Curving his fingers around the back of her neck, he lifted her into a kiss that tasted sharp and tart and sweet. She licked herself off his lips as she pushed her fingers into his pants to stroke the length of his cock.

He broke away to groan her name. The arm bracing his body above hers trembled.

“If you keep that up…”

She smiled at him. “Will you fall on top of me?” She squeezed his cock, and he swore. “Let me ride you, then.”

Cloud didn’t hesitate. He rolled to his back, bringing her with him. She heard the thunk of his boots hitting the ground as she pushed his pants down his hips. His hands joined hers, and then his feet dragged his pants lower.

She settled astride him. A roll of her hips caught his cock between the lips of her cunt, and Cloud made the kind of sound that nearly killed her. She adored that sound on a man’s lips.

“You’re killing me,” he groaned.

Aerith moaned, too, head falling to the side. “The best kind of death. Good thing you have tufts of phoenix down.” But items didn’t save a man from the kind of death that came with sex.

She rocked her hips against him, dragging her cunt along his length. With every roll of her hips, she rubbed her clit over him. The pleasure of it made her shudder—made him shudder. She let him soak in it as she did, working herself against him so she could burn as hot and bright as she had when he’d had his fingers in her and his mouth on her.

His hands swept up her hips. He plucked at the buttons of her dress, opening the front of it so he could fill his hands with her breasts.

She gasped, her hips moving sharply against him as her cunt clenched on nothing. Rough calluses against her skin. Delicious texture. Her nipples hardened under his touch, and with a glance at her face, he closed his fingers around the little nubs.

An aching moan spilled out of her as he pinched her nipples. A louder one filled the air when he released one nipple, surging up to close his mouth around abused flesh.

Wet heat seared her. Need blazed inside her.

She reached beneath her skirt, catching his cock in her fingers. As he sucked her nipple hard, she sank down on him, and the burning stretch of it was good, so good. She pressed her cheek against the top of his head, gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise.

His hands stayed gentle on her hips. A light pressure showed her how he wanted her to move, and she rocked against him to the rhythm he so sweetly asked for.

The hot brand of his cock rubbed against already sensitive flesh. She groaned again, almost whimpering when he released her nipple and tipped his head back to look at her.

Sky blue eyes met hers. She fell into them, fell into the sky as he moved inside her. Wind rushed through her hair. She soared on the front of the thunderstorm as it crashed furiously over the city. The storm screamed in the face of Shinra’s hubris, and she screamed with it as Cloud’s fingers slipped beneath her dress to dance over her clit.

She came at least twice for him, her cries sounding with the thunder as he clutched her to him. And when she shuddered against him the last time, he rolled her to her back so he could fuck her the way he needed to.

A few hard thrusts left him shaking over her. His fingers slid into her hair, and he kissed her rough and hard as he spilled inside her.

They lay there for a long time.

Slowly, she began to hear the sound of runoff on the roof. Gradually, she felt the warmth of sex recede for the chill of the storm.

She smiled faintly. “Good thing there aren’t any neighbors to bother.”

Cloud huffed out a chuckle. “Not sure I’d care if there were.”

No, she wouldn’t have cared either.

Hearts were foolish things, but it felt good to feel cherished again. The neighbors could go to hell for all she cared.

**Author's Note:**

> Think of me like a kink meme dumpster. Leave a comment telling me what you liked about this fic along with a prompt, and I'll add your prompt to my list.


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